French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has promised a “more ambitious” approach to tackling crypto ransom attacks after confirming there were 77 kidnapping, extortion or attempted extortion incidents linked to crypto in the first half of 2026. 

Nuñez said Tuesday that the 77 incidents recorded so far this year are up sharply from the 45 recorded in all of 2025, according to local outlet BFM Business.

“These are serious matters, and your concern is legitimate,” he told the Association for the Development of Digital Assets (ADAN) as he promised more government support.

France has become one of the biggest hot spots for crypto wrench attacks, where criminals use physical violence to coerce victims into handing over crypto. Approximately 11% of French people own cryptocurrencies, according to ADAN, which equates to about 7.3 million people.

France’s rapid alert and protection system 

Earlier this year, French authorities launched a dedicated prevention platform and a rapid-alert and protection system for crypto holders and professionals, which has attracted 724 sign-ups so far, Nuñez said.

Nuñez said that emergency measures have resulted in 200 arrests, with one recent attacker being arrested within eight hours on Friday, thanks in part to the victim using an emergency identification hotline.

Related: StarkWare introduces ‘Private KYC’ to address personal data breaches

Nuñez promised a “more ambitious” three-part plan to reinforce security measures for the crypto sector. This includes stronger intelligence-sharing, since criminal networks are often based abroad, a deeper partnership with ADAN and better operational coordination between security services. 

French wrench attacks on the rise

Blockchain security firm CertiK reported in May that wrench attacks globally were up 41% in the first four months of 2026, compared with the same period last year, with most attacks in Europe. 

The firm said France is the “epicenter” of attacks because of the presence of several flagship industry companies and their executives, a “culture of flexing and voluntary doxxing that remains deeply embedded in the community,” and proven exposure from numerous sensitive data leaks.

David Balland, co-founder of French hardware wallet maker Ledger, was kidnapped and held for ransom along with his partner in January 2025 before being rescued by police. 

Ledger suffered one of the industry’s most damaging data breaches when its customer database was hacked in 2020, resulting in the leak of more than 270,000 personal records and a wave of phishing and wrench attacks that continue to this day. 

“France ranks among the most targeted countries in the world for this type of breach,” CertiK said.

Europe is becoming a hotbed for wrench attacks in 2026. Source: CertiK

Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves

Tether has frozen USDT balances in 131 TRON wallets linked to ISIS-K after U.S. sanctions officials added more than 100 crypto identifiers tied to the group. 

The move places stablecoin issuer controls at the center of a new terrorism-financing action involving TRON and Monero addresses.

Chainalysis said the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control updated its ISIS-K designation on July 1. The update added 134 crypto wallet identifiers, including 131 TRON addresses and three Monero addresses. 

“Tether has frozen the balances on all 131 TRON addresses,” said Chainalysis.

The official OFAC update lists the wallets under ISIL Khorasan, also known as ISIS-K. The group is the Islamic State’s Afghanistan and Pakistan branch. OFAC had already designated ISIS-K as a terrorist group before adding the new crypto wallet identifiers.

Chainalysis tracks Tether flows across TRON wallets

Chainalysis said the 131 TRON addresses had received more than $1.4 million since 2023. The same wallets sent out more than $880,000 over that period. The blockchain analytics firm said several listed wallets had exposure to mainstream services and also sent funds to Syria-based crypto exchangers.

The report said ISIS-K’s media branch, al-Azaim Media Foundation, has used websites and messaging platforms to seek crypto donations. Chainalysis said it had collected past donation addresses on TRON, Monero, and Bitcoin. The firm also noted that earlier public terrorism-financing campaigns often used smaller donations, rather than a few large transfers.

Stablecoin freeze role keeps growing

The latest freeze follows a wider rise in issuer-level enforcement around USDT. As previously reported, Tether’s T3 Financial Crime Unit passed $450 million in frozen suspected illicit assets since its 2024 launch. The unit is backed by Tether, TRON, and TRM Labs, and focuses on USDT activity on the TRON network.

Moreover, Tether froze more than $514 million across 370 addresses during one 30-day period earlier this year. Most of the frozen funds were on TRON. BlockSec data cited in that report showed Tether blacklisted 4,163 addresses in 2025, freezing $1.26 billion across Ethereum and TRON.

Sanctions pressure reaches compliance teams

The ISIS-K action also comes after other terrorism-linked wallet freezes this year. Victims with U.S. terrorism judgments asked a New York court to order Tether to turn over 344,149,759 USDT held in two OFAC-blocked TRON wallets linked to Iran’s IRGC. That case centers on whether frozen stablecoins can be transferred to judgment creditors.

Chainalysis said the July 1 actions require virtual asset service providers and financial institutions to update sanctions screening and transaction monitoring. The firm also said it labeled the relevant addresses in its products. The step gives compliance teams a way to detect exposure to the newly listed ISIS-K wallets and related networks.

K Wave Media has sold its remaining Bitcoin holdings, ending a short-lived treasury push that once aimed to turn the Nasdaq-listed Korean media company into a major corporate BTC holder. 

The sale came less than a year after the company said it had access to up to $1 billion in financing for its Bitcoin strategy.

K Wave sells 88 BTC to repay debt

In a June 30 SEC filing, K Wave said it liquidated 88 Bitcoin held in its treasury and used the proceeds to repay $6 million of Initial Notes. The transaction was tied to an April 29 amendment to its securities purchase agreement with Anson Funds.

Bitcoin ended June at $58,526, sliding 20.5% over the month and recording its weakest monthly performance since June 2022. The retreat left the flagship cryptocurrency trading below its 200-week moving average near $62,000, but still above a key on-chain valuation metric known as realized price (around $52,000), a configuration that some analysts interpret as a warning that the market may not have reached a full bear-market bottom.

Crypto analyst PlanB, creator of the stock-to-flow pricing model, argued that this price positioning matters because previous bear-market troughs occurred below realized price. In a post shared this week, PlanB said the setup suggests Bitcoin’s downside could continue, potentially revisiting the realized-price area and beyond.

Key takeaways

• Bitcoin’s June close at $58,526 placed it below the 200-week moving average (about $62,000) while remaining above realized price (~$52,000).
• PlanB says earlier bear-market bottoms formed below realized price, implying the market may still be searching for its bottom.
• Analysts at Bitrue Research Institute and Bitget Wallet both described the June-to-$60,000 region as a developing bottom zone, but with risk of further drawdowns.
• Benjamin Cowen suggested Bitcoin may see a cycle-bottom window tied to the US midterm election year, historically aligning with accumulation phases in 2018 and 2022.

Why June’s “in-between” level is drawing attention

PlanB’s argument centers on what he views as the relationship between price and realized price during bear markets. According to the stock-to-flow analyst, Bitcoin’s historical bear-market bottoms have not simply arrived after price fell below major moving averages; they also tended to appear after price moved to levels beneath realized price.

In earlier posts, PlanB highlighted that if Bitcoin breaks down below realized price, it would align with that prior pattern. He referenced the possibility that Bitcoin could fall to $52,000, which would correspond closely with realized price.

From an investor perspective, this distinction can be important because realized price is often used as an on-chain proxy for the average cost basis of coins in circulation. When market price trades above realized price, the market may still be able to bounce; when it slips below, the distribution of holders’ costs versus current valuations tends to become more unfavorable, which can prolong bearish conditions.

Realized price explained—and what it signals

Realized price is calculated by valuing all Bitcoin outputs (typically discussed in terms of unspent transaction output or UTXO cohorts) at the price when each coin last moved on-chain. The result is an aggregate measure of the average acquisition price for the existing supply.

Because realized price reflects holder cost basis, it is frequently used to identify potential support areas during downtrends. The idea is that when price is substantially below realized levels, the market is effectively pricing Bitcoin below what many holders paid when they last moved coins, which can coincide with capitulation phases and supply shakeouts.

Against that backdrop, June’s outcome—still above realized price but no longer above the 200-week moving average—has led analysts to frame the current range as transitional rather than conclusive.

Analysts see a bottom developing, but not confirmed

Andri Fauzan Adziima, research lead at Bitrue Research Institute, told Cointelegraph that Bitcoin’s June close carried a signal consistent with prior cycles. He said the month’s finish above realized price but below the 200-week moving average “signals the bear bottom is still ahead per prior cycles.”

Adziima added that he is watching for a potential capitulation period in late 2026 before a subsequent move higher—while also arguing that the decline could be shallower this cycle due to the role of institutions.

Meanwhile, Lacie Zhang, research analyst at Bitget Wallet, characterized the current consolidation around $60,000 as an area that may be approaching a bottom. She told Cointelegraph that if further downside occurs, the market could build “strong historical and technical support” around $55,000.

Taken together, these views reflect a common tension in market bottoms: technical indicators and on-chain benchmarks can both suggest stabilization, yet neither can confirm capitulation has fully played out. In this case, the “middle” positioning—between the 200-week moving average and realized price—is leaving room for additional volatility before a more durable floor forms.

Cycle-bottom theory tied to US midterms

Beyond on-chain valuation levels, some analysts are also looking at macro calendar effects. ITC Crypto founder Benjamin Cowen speculated that Bitcoin may see a cycle bottom this year, pointing to the fact that it is a US midterm election year.

Cowen argued that the second half of midterm years often marks an accumulation zone and a market cycle bottom, noting that such timing previously coincided with bear market bottoms in 2018 and 2022. The next US midterms are scheduled for Nov. 3, with all House of Representatives seats and about a third of Senate seats up for election.

While this framing is not the same as a realized-price breakdown model, it can influence how traders time risk—particularly when they treat the calendar as a factor that shapes liquidity and positioning. Investors watching this thesis would likely focus on whether Bitcoin’s downtrend stabilizes into accumulation rather than continuing to grind toward or below realized price.

For now, the key takeaway from all perspectives is that June’s close did not neatly resolve the debate. Bitcoin is weak enough to be below its long-term trend proxy, but it has not yet fallen to the on-chain valuation zone that PlanB says has marked prior trough formation.

Traders and long-term holders will likely watch whether Bitcoin can hold above realized price around $52,000 and whether weakness extends toward $55,000 support. The market’s next step—whether it stabilizes into accumulation or breaks below realized valuation—may determine if this is merely consolidation or the start of a more complete bear-market bottom.

Solana Foundation has introduced Solana Governance Proposals, a new onchain process for validators to move major network questions into stake-weighted votes. 

The system gives validators a formal route to submit, support, and decide governance items that may shape Solana’s future protocol direction.

Meanwhile, the Solana Governance Proposals repo says SGPs are documents proposed by Solana validators for stake-weighted, onchain voting through the svmgov program. The process is for high-level questions that ask whether the network should move in a certain direction, rather than detailed technical changes. This keeps SGPs focused on broad network direction only.

A validator vote account needs at least 100,000 SOL staked to take an SGP onchain. The proposal then needs support from at least 15% of active stake before it can enter voting. The Solana Governance documentation says validators create proposals, other validators support them, and voting weight is proven through Merkle proofs against an onchain stake snapshot.

The process separates signals from code

The SGP process sits beside Solana Improvement Documents, which cover detailed protocol design. In simple terms, SGPs ask whether Solana should pursue a direction, while SIMDs explain how a change would be built. The repo says, “A ‘yes’ on an SGP is a mandate to proceed.”

The lifecycle moves from idea to draft, support, voting, acceptance, and activation. Once a proposal reaches the 15% support threshold, it enters a fixed 11-epoch process. That includes seven epochs for discussion, one epoch for a Node Consensus Network snapshot, and three epochs for voting.

There is no quorum rule. A proposal passes only if “For” votes reach at least 66.67% of “For” plus “Against” stake. The repo also says SGPs are not mandatory for every technical change. If validators do not reach support, developers can continue through normal SIMD review.

Governance arrives as upgrades continue

The launch comes as Solana continues to test large infrastructure changes. As previously reported, the Alpenglow upgrade entered community validator testing in May. Alpenglow aims to cut confirmation times to about 150 milliseconds and remove Proof of History and onchain vote transactions from Solana’s core process.

The new SGP route could give validators a clearer way to request network-wide direction before developers prepare technical work. The GitHub repo uses Alpenglow as an example of a proposal that could have first taken a directional vote before later SIMDs defined the build path. That example shows how Solana may use SGPs when validator input is needed before engineering details are complete.

Recent Solana activity adds context

Solana’s validator set has also been tied to other recent network tools. As crypto.news reported, DoubleZero launched Edge in April with 379 validators publishing shreds and about 43% of Solana’s total stake covered at launch. The project aims to deliver Solana block data through private fiber paths.

Solana has also seen renewed market activity around network use. Crypto.news reported that Solana’s tokenized stock activity helped drive an 18% weekly SOL rebound in late June. Earlier, crypto.news reported that Galaxy Digital proposed a voting model for Solana inflation, showing that validator voting design has already been part of the network’s policy debate.

Türkiye-based digital asset platform Paribu has launched DeFi access inside its main app, adding DEX trading, perpetual contracts through Hyperliquid, and Polymarket-linked option markets. 

The company also opened a waitlist for stock trading as it works to combine crypto, DeFi, yield products, and equities in one app.

Paribu said it is the first regulated exchange to offer both Hyperliquid perpetuals and Polymarket option markets through a centralized exchange interface. Users can access the DeFi section with their existing balance, without a separate wallet app, seed phrase, or new account. The company said each DeFi position remains self-custodial, while trades settle onchain through linked protocols.